Does self-control equal happiness and success? A new study flips the idea on its head.

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/does-self-control-equal-happiness-and-success-a-new-study-flips-the-idea-on-its-head

Want to understand the history of European culture? Start with the Minoans, not the Ancient Greeks.

From art to architecture, this pioneering bronze age civilisation had a huge influence on other western cultures.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250821-want-to-understand-the-history-of-european-culture-start-with-the-minoans-not-the-ancient-greeks?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Europe #Minoans #Culture #BronzeAge #Civilisation #Minoan #History #Greece #Crete #Archaeology #Art #Architecture #WesternCulture

Top ten posts in June 2025

https://library.hrmtc.com/2025/07/01/top-ten-posts-in-june-2025/

#angelDiaries #article #bestPosts #bestTen #blood #book #BrianPCopenhaver #CindyBarukhMilstein #cinema #cryptic #empodiment #erikDavis #esotericSecrets #esotericism #GarryJShaw #GeorgiaVanRaalte #GrahamStJohn #initiation #JeanSeznac #JohnCoulthart #JohnMalkovich #Journal #June2025 #MaggieMayhem #magic #manuscripts #menstruationMagic #Monad #movie #mysterious #paganGods #PatrickLeppetit #poster #resistance #ritual #RobertSchwentke #RolloAhmed #sacred #secretSocieties #Seneca #summary #summaryOfTheMonth #Surrealism #survival #TerenceMcKenna #topPosts #topTen #Voynich #westernCulture #zine

AI suggestions make writing more generic, Western

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/04/ai-suggestions-make-writing-more-generic-western

#HackerNews #AIwriting #GenericContent #WesternCulture #AIethics #WritingTrends

Banksy on Capitalism: Challenging Inequality and Consumerism Through Art (11 Artworks)

Banksy: Art Against Capitalism and Consumerism

Through his provocative and inspiring works, Banksy exposes the darker sides of capitalism and consumerism. Pieces like Fat Tourist and Rickshaw, Shop Until You Drop, and Sale Ends Today reveal how privilege, exploitation, and materialism shape modern society. By blending wit and stark imagery, Banksy challenges us to question the values driving Western culture.

More: 24 artworks by Banksy: Who Is The Visionary of Street Art

1

Banksy’s Barcode Leopard shows a leopard walking away from a barcode cage, symbolizing the commodification of nature under capitalism.

2

Banksy’s Trolley Hunters highlights the absurdity of consumer culture, showing hunters targeting shopping carts in a savanna-like setting.

More: Street Art Legend Banksy Reveals His Name in a Rare BBC Interview

3

Banksy’s Napalm pairs Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald with a distressed child from the Vietnam War, critiquing corporate exploitation and the detachment of consumer culture from human suffering.

In Banksy’s repurposing of Nick Ut’s iconic Vietnam War photograph he make a statement against large corporations and their involvement in warfare. This piece not only critiques the military-industrial complex but also warns of the destructive nature of capitalist imperialism.

Through these artworks, Banksy challenges viewers to reflect on the impact of capitalism on society, culture, and individual lives. His art transcends mere visual expression, becoming a catalyst for critical thought and discussion about the current state of our world.

More: 14 Great Banksy Street Art Photos and Quotes!

4

Banksy’s mural uses a red graph line as a whip, held by a businessman driving people forward. It’s a commentary on how economic growth often comes at the expense of human suffering and exploitation.

5

Banksy’s Sale Ends Today shows figures worshipping a “SALE ENDS TODAY” sign, highlighting how consumerism has replaced spirituality and values in modern society.

6

Banksy’s artwork Christ with Shopping Bags portrays a crucified figure of Christ holding shopping bags filled with Christmas-themed items like candy canes and gifts. The image critiques the commercialization of religious holidays and the materialism that overshadows their original meaning.

7

Banksy’s artwork Shop Until You Drop features a stencil of a woman falling headfirst through the air, clinging to a shopping cart filled with groceries. The piece critiques consumerism, portraying the dangerous obsession with material goods.

8

Banksy’s Sorry! The Lifestyle You Ordered mocks consumer culture, with a billboard declaring the unavailability of the promised lifestyle. It’s a critique of modern materialism and unfulfilled expectations.

9

Banksy’s Show Me the Monet reinterprets Monet’s iconic garden, adding shopping carts and a traffic cone to critique consumerism and environmental disregard in modern society.

10

Banksy’s Fat Tourist and Rickshaw from the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition in 2009 highlights social inequality, depicting a couple enjoying luxury at the expense of a struggling child pulling their rickshaw.

11

This image captures the essence of Banksy’s Dismaland (2015), a dark parody of theme parks, where a staff member with Mickey Mouse ears and a bored expression underscores the critique of consumerism and artificial joy.

More photos from Dismaland: Inside Banksy´s Dismaland

What do you think about this art by Banksy? Do you have a favorite?

#Art #artCritique #Banksy #Capitalism #classWar #Consumerism #exploitation #graffiti #inequality #modernSociety #money #mural #politicalArt #provocativeArt #slave #slaves #stockmarket #StreetArt #UrbanArt #WesternCulture #workingclass

#Federal #Report #Outlines #Abuses at #Native #BoardingSchools, #Calls for #Remedies.

#NativeAmerican #children were taken from #homes, #parents, and #communities to #boardingschools to “#assimilate them into #WesternCulture,” and "#Religion," a strategy of #cultural #genocide.

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #IndigenousPeople #History #Religion #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #EmptyThePews

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/federal-report-outlines-abuses-at-native-boarding-schools-calls-for-remedies/

#culture #empire #affect #education #ClimateChange #history #psychology #indigenous #WesternCulture #industrialization #Discipline #Punish

what do y'all think?:

"from the beginning of the industrial age, we have taken the whole of humanity on a big journey away from 'the natural world'... in pursuit of progress. ...in pursuit of our rational superiority to the world, and animals, and things like that.

we're beginning to review that now, and we're beginning to see the costs of that.

[...]

the whole of humanity has been busy putting up a sort of false self [of rationality] over what i call "the inner indigenous" - that "natural" self that's got a lot of spontanaeity, emotions. it's raw and sexual and things like that... we've been coating that with rationality and with progress.

the british system of boarding school is a perfect element at developing that kind of estranged self, which functions terribly well in other institutions - like in politics, in the army, in church, in business, in building empire. and of course that was the original motivation [behind developing the schools] - to develop administrators of the british empire.

but take it out of that environment and into the one where the natural self is more apparent - in the family - and it functions very badly, in general. so the breakdown of that self is liable to be in the family.

and [recovering] is not just an internal sort of psycho-spiritual adventure, it also means you have to come home to relationship, to being a social being, to being a family being, to being a body... and in that journey, that's where the true wisdom is to be had. you can take your refined mental appartus and use that to help you on that journey...and that's great." - nick duffell

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPHxGYAqbuU

-----

i think this is a very interesting line of reasoning!

i disagree with his contention that "the whole of humanity" is doing this, but that's another thing you'll find in mainstream western culture - a universalizing drive that takes characteristics of western culture & society, and treats them as if they apply to all people everywhere. he's a brit, i forgive him this error.

i don't know about "inner indigenous"...but i get what he's saying about a more "animal" self that gets turned into a "civilization-brain" self through an institutional education process.

the civilization-brain self does well in institutions (and so you see it rise to the top of things like international negotiations on climate change), but it has little connection to the "living" or "animal" self - which is what the fight over climate change is all about! like, valuing the actual living world! not some abstract version of it, but the actual land and people and animals!

i like his analysis because it ties together separation from self, separation from nature, separation from other people (emotionally), and empire, boarding schools, institutions of all kinds, industrialization (historically), and the global ecological catastrophe we're all a part of.

and i like that he recommends that people (especially gentlemen, who are more likely to have been disciplined out of their "animal" selves, imo) reconnect with other people and go on their own "psycho-spiritual" journey to discover whether that "civilization-brain self" is really all there is to life.

and i agree that if one hasn't reconnected to their own animal self, and hasn't reconnected with actual people and the actual land, it's going to be very hard to get in "good relation" to the planet (and solve the exploitation of nature that is like, at the root of climate change. if people lived in balance with the land (ie, in 'right relation'), we wouldn't have biodiversity loss, we wouldn't have climate change...because you'd be valuing the land and bringing it back to life, instead of exploiting it.

A short burst of words on how, in Western culture, we very often censor ourselves when we learn of or are present at the death of a loved one.
Even at this most vulnerable, painful time, restraint kicks in and a voice tells us not to inflict the most raw version of our distress on others.

The visceral grief that is openly displayed and experienced communally in other cultures happens behind tightly closed doors for us, if it happens at all!

#Grief #Loss #Ritual #WesternCulture

[EN] We are at a crossroads in history and the Western culture is being questioned recently due to its selective approach. There needs to be a redefinition of the value system adopted and to explain what each value means explicitly in order for this culture to avoid the downward path which it has set for itself.

#westernculture
#cultureevolution
#superiority
#selectivity
#valuesystem

https://www.tiktok.com/@hayan.harb/video/7303603699434130721